“Pressure from rainy weather Friday evening was intense,” with humidity levels at 90%, according to the state Xinhua news agency.

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A Chinese rocket launcher used to seed clouds. (AP)

“Under such a weather condition, a small bubble in the rain cloud would have triggered rainfall, let alone a lightening,” Xinhua quoted Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau, as saying. Guo’s team had been tracking the rain clouds since 7:20 a.m. Friday, Xihnua said.

That prompted authorities to launch the day’s first rockets at 4 p.m. But the clouds refused to disperse, and the Bureau issued a “yellow alert” at 9:35 p.m. — 90 minutes into the ceremony — for thundershowers to hit downtown Beijing within an hour.

A further barrage of rockets drove the rain away for good as of 10:42, Xinhua says. Authorities continued to fire rockets until near the Ceremony’s finale from locations around Beijing.

“We fired a total of 1,104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4 p.m. and 11:39 p.m. on Friday, which successfully intercepted a stretch of rain belt from moving towards the stadium,” Guo says, according to Xinhua.

China has been experimenting with silver iodide rockets that induce rainfall through a method called “cloud seeding.” Beijing officials say they can seed threatening clouds and cause them to release rain before it reaches the capital. They’ve also talked about triggering rain to clear the white smog, which still blankets Beijing on most summer days.

Of course, some scientists doubt whether any of this works.

Rain did fall in the Beijing suburb of Fangshan, about 40 kilometers southwest of the city center. Heavy rain hit Baoding City in Hebei Province, further southwest of Beijing.

“As rain stayed away from the ceremony, the four-hour extravaganza in the Bird’s Nest proved a dazzling show that entertained billions of people around the world,” Xinhua notes.

Unfortunately, Beijing still can’t do much about its airborne murk. Friday’s air pollution index came in at 94, just below the maximum for what it calls “blue sky days.”

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